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Two of the nation’s leading researchers into prescription drug costs join us for an in-depth exploration of the reasons for our high and increasing drug bill, and a critical analysis of some of the investment, transparency, value, and outcomes-based metrics being used to determine fair prescription drug costs. Ameet Sarpatwari is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital based in the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) within the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, and Aaron S. Kesselheim is PORTAL Director and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Research Associate at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. During the program, Frank mentioned the book-in-progress Infection: The Health Crisis in the Developing World and What We Should Do About It, by William W. Fisher III and Talha Syed, in the context of a discussion of drug importation, reflecting concerns he expressed in a 2009 article.

The Week in Health Law Podcast from Frank Pasquale and Nicolas Terry is a commuting-length discussion about some of the more thorny issues in Health Law & Policy. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, listen at Stitcher RadioTunein, or Podbean, or search for The Week in Health Law in your favorite podcast app. Show notes and more are at TWIHL.com. If you have comments, an idea for a show or a topic to discuss you can find us on Twitter @nicolasterry @FrankPasquale @WeekInHealthLaw

It sure would have been interesting to have heard the pharmaceutical company perspective. There were a lot of straw men being put up in this podcast, as well as little to no acknowledgement that there are sophisticated parties on both sides of many of the arrangements being criticized. For instance, if the endpoints or rebate terms are undesirable for an outcomes-based contract, why would an insurer, PBM, or other payor agree to those terms?